The first day of IEM Sydney 2018 is behind us. Considering today’s matches this is going to be an interesting tournament. Last year’s winner SK gaming is out of the tournament after only 2 matches. How did that happen?

Every once in a while even the best teams in the world have to some changes in order to stay on the top. They have to change their routine to be unpredictable. Most teams do minor changes, they change coaches, use different tactics, economy management style but when that does not work they have to do some major changes too. When it comes to roster changes things can get complicated. That is exactly what happened to SK, they needed to get some “fresh blood” into the team. Stewie2K replaced TACO.

Individually Stewie is a way better player than TACO but he needs some time to adjust to SK’s foreign playstyle. Before Stewie, this was a pure Brazilian team, and it is much easier to communicate in a native language. However, SK is out and we need to focus on the teams that are still fighting for the one of 4 spots in the playoffs.

Group A:

A total of six matches were played today in group A. There were three top 10 ranked teams in this group; Faze, Cloud9 and SK. Not even one of them managed to get in the upper bracket finals. Faze and Cloud9 are both declassed to lower bracket with a 1-1 record while SK lost both matches and finished as a 15th team in this tournament. Tyloo managed to get to the finals of upper bracket in group A by defeating SK and Cloud9. On the other side Renegades also made it to the final of the upper bracket in this group, they were better against Legacy and Faze. One thing is for sure, one of these 2 teams is going to the final stage of this tournament, so-called playoffs. My money is on Tyloo, they are just unstoppable.

Group B:

In the group B thing are not interesting as in group A. Only 4 matches were played today and we have 4 major teams here; Mousesports, Astralis Fnatic, and G2. All 4 teams meet their expectations and won their first match. If nothing else, we can expect two great matches tomorrow. mouse vs Astralis and Fnatic vs G2.

IEM Sydney Betting tips

Mousesports vs Astralis

The most interesting match is the one between Mousesports and Astralis (LAN, BO3). This is group B upper bracket semi-finals.

Last 5 matches: Mousesports won 3 out of 5 last matches while Astralis won 2 out of 5.

Head to head: Mousesports 8 – 6 Astralis.

Have you ever wondered why team Astralis has so many sponsors on their jerseys? Nobody owns them, they own themselves, they don’t have salaries and they play for themselves. That is why this team is one of my favourites, they answer to no one. This team is living off the money from the prize funds and they have to earn every penny. That is the main reason this team never lack moral and they can come back in any situation. After dev1ce’s illness he came back ready to lead this team but things were not so shiny. They were losing one game after another and the team almost split. On top of that Kyaerbye left to North and they had to find a roster replacement.

A new direction?

Magiskboy stepped in as a temporary solution but he has proven himself and he is now one of the key players on this team. Astralis is currently ranked as a number 1 team in CS:GO. Since Magisk arrived they were top 3 ranked in the last 3 LAN tournaments. They even won the last LAN, DreamHack Masters Marseille two weeks ago. Mouse hate to play against teams like Astralis. Astralis is a team who tends to have map control and they maintain it even if they lose a player, they don’t go back. They play aggressive counter strike and mouse can’t do anything about it. From the economy aspect, mousesports is an old-school team, they don’t do reckless buys, most of the time they play predictive and that is good in matchmaking but not in professional CS:GO matches. On the other side, Astralis is known as the team with one of the best economies. My tip here is a medium bet on Astralis 6/10. 1,40 @ Bet365

Last 5 matches: Fnatic won 2 out of 5 last matches while G2 won 4 out of 5.

Head to head: Fnatic 26 – 23 G2.

I chose to bet against favorites in this match. G2 is doing a great job lately, six days ago they won two best of ones against Fnatic. That was not luck, they were the better team on each map. Fnatic is forcing Mirage as their best map. I am sure they would pick Mirage again tomorrow if G2 does not ban it, but why would they ban it? G2 won last time they played on that map. Fnatic is forcing mid-take on Mirage. They constantly smoke mid window and boost one player there but that is not working against G2, KennyS is more than capable of holding mid and he has help from connector too.

Team Fnatic need to change their tactics on Mirage, they are too obvious and that strategy is not working anymore. We got some pretty good odds too, 2.10 @ Bet 365 and I would not miss it. My final tip is a low bet on Fnatic 4/10